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Soleil will take flight Saturday night at Awesome Championship Wrestling’s (ACW) Indypendence Day in a tag team match with Dante Casanova as they look to get the upper hand on the duo known as The Righteous.
Former WWE star Sidney Akeem is the man behind the mask. This will be his first appearance in ACW since 2025 at Mischief Night when he faced Casanova and AJZ in a triple threat match. Casanova was the winner of this battle and is now teaming up with Soleil.
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Sunshine in an ACW ring. (Photography by Jay Adam)
He told PK Press Club Digital that he was excited to have the opportunity to face Vincent and Dutch as they progressed as one of the best teams in professional wrestling, primarily competing in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) on Thursday night.
“I’m not going to say I’m nervous. I’ve been in the ring with a lot of talent in my career,” he said. “This is my first time meeting The Righteous and I’m excited. I was actually talking to the brothers not too long ago, telling them how much I appreciate their work and so sharing the in-ring stage with them is going to be fun.
“It’s going to be different because me and Dante Casanova, you know, it happened unexpectedly, but I think we’re two guys who are done proving that we belong in this wrestling world, the ACW locker room. I think we’ve more than proven we belong. I think right now it’s about making a statement. Making a statement and making an impact and hoping for that tag team division.”
The possibility of wearing the mask again is an important element for Soleil.
He said he had been working on the character for several years and tried to bring it to WWE, but it never took off. He was known as Scrypts and Reggie during his tenure with the company.
Soleil does a flip in Awesome Championship Wrestling. (Photography by Jay Adam)
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“Yeah, I mean, it’s the new me and it’s also the real me,” he told PK Press Club Digital. “Everyone knows Sidney Akeem, the former WWE Superstar Reggie, the star of NXT Scrypts, and you know I never really found who I really am when I was in WWE, and then when I came to the indies, I had a great run as Sidney Akeem, but there was something missing. Something was missing not only in me but in that connection with fans around the world. And so, I had this character of Soleil….I created him for almost six years and he never came together because it just wasn’t the right time and in NXT that’s what I wanted Scrypts to be, but there were too many chefs in the kitchen. I debuted on Ring of Honor but Soleil’s real debut with the music, the jumbotron, everything was on ACW.
“So the fact that I debuted this character, the real me, and on ACW. I think it’s only right that it continues. You might see Sidney Akeem again. But it’s Soleil because that’s what I represent and what it means not only to me, but to so many people around the world. It’s a sign of courage to break down the barriers of the boxes that they tried to keep people in. I grew up in a place where you weren’t allowed to be a superhero. You weren’t allowed to be your true self and so you put on these masks to be other people. Well, this mask is put on to show you who I really am.
Soleil said he wanted to express to the audience that it’s okay to express who you are as a person. You can be a superhero and fly through the air like him.
“The wrestling world is big and you can try to target a certain group of people or you can try to target everyone. I’ve found who I want to be a symbol for and there are so many kids in the world that not only look like me, but are going through or have gone through things that I’ve been through in my life and letting them know that it’s OK to unleash the superhero in them,” he said. “It’s okay to dream big and sometimes a little crazy and wacky because the world will tell us no. People will tell us no.
Soleil enters the ring. (Smoothlenz Photography)
“And Soleil, I’m the one who says yes to everyone. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, what you’ve done before, or what your reputation might be. There’s a superhero inside everyone. And I want people to understand that I don’t throw a mask around as a gimmick. reality that we have for all the things that we do. And I said I’m not in the circus anymore, I’m in the world of wrestling and the wrestling started in the circus. So that’s the story that’s much deeper than just putting on a mask as a gimmick.
Even as a superhero character, Soleil wasn’t exactly committed to supporting a team that had already had a dangerous experience with The Righteous.
At Reckoning in May, The Righteous came out from behind and handcuffed Hale Collins to the cage as Vik Dalishus took a beating from Sent 2 Slaughter’s Danny Maff and Shawn Donovan.
The Now and Sent 2 Slaughter will once again be on opposite sides of the ring Saturday as they compete in a lumberjack match between Tommy Dreamer and Josh Shernoff.
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“I’m also on my own journey and I understand that Dante has now entered my world, my journey. We just have to see how the cards are dealt because I can’t tell you right now that, yes, I will support this person or that person,” Soleil told PK Press Club Digital. “We, no matter how confident we are, we have a tough task ahead of us. The Righteous, they’re not easy guys. We’re going into this game believing that we can win, but we can’t go into it half-cocked and unfocused thinking that, oh, this is just a piece of cake because they’re obviously not one of the best teams that we have in this business. So, that’s a question that we’re going to have to get through once we get there.”
Independence Day takes place Saturday at the MJN Center in Poughkeepsie, New York.
